


One Road Forward

by 1000PaperCranes



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: And Complicated Emotions, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blades has a Complicated Past, Chase is a People-person?, Death in the Family, F/M, Future Fic, Future Imperfect, Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Heatwave Just has Emotions, Off-screen death, happy-ish ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-15 05:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16927617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000PaperCranes/pseuds/1000PaperCranes
Summary: I've been thinking about Rescue Bots Academy, and I really can't see Kade giving up his partnership with Heatwave, so why is Cody the show's only human?  The solution is painfully simple:Instead of following in his father's footsteps, Cody finds a much more urgent need to fill his brother's shoes.





	1. Susnet

Blades watched Dani, Cody, and Charlie Burns bustle around the firehouse as if nothing was wrong.  He felt a scream building.  Just before he lost his temper and let loose a tirade of epic proportions, Chase took a gentling grip on the helicopter’s shoulder.  Blades looked at him, fury temporarily waylaid by curiosity.

“I have seen this before.”  Chase looked over the milling humans.  “They cannot process what has happened, so they will continue on as if it has not until the facts make themselves irrefutably clear.”

Blades looked at the humans again.  He could see something numb about the Chief.  Graham had yet to arrive.  “When will that happen?”

“The arrival of the body is particularly effective.”  Chase sounded grim, even for Chase.  “We weren’t all hatched into gestalts, Blades.  Sometimes just knowing someone is dead is not enough.”

It hurt more to hear Chase say it.  It hurt to be reminded of the family he’d lost.  It was the most pain Blades had felt so far, and he felt guilty for it.  Losing a bot in a gestalt was a visceral, physical thing.  The memories haunted him, the bonds never went away, just faded.  This though, the feeling was all mental, emotional, and he hadn’t liked Kade very much.  Still, he felt terrible, like something was missing that could never be found.  Blades loved the Burns family, even Kade; would he feel this detached when Dani died?  Because she would, humans didn’t live that long.

Kade was dead, young for a human and dead.  Maybe Blades would never again feel pain like losing a member of his gestalt, but he’d never feel Kade again at all.  Blade’s spark gave a deep curl of anguish.  The rage lingering in the back of his mind fell apart, no longer fueled by guilt and confusion.  This did hurt, and it was bound to get worse, for everyone.  “How is Heatwave?”

“I do not know.”  Chase absently picked up Charlie Burns when the man approached, offering the human subtle comfort as he turned to look out the firehouse doors.  “He walked away one hundred twenty-eight minutes ago.”  Chase was clearly worried but also clearly believed Heatwave would not welcome his interference.

Blades didn’t really give a glitch.  “I’ll go check on him.”

“You’ll have to find him first,” Boulder said, transforming behind them as Graham moved to stand bewildered in the middle of the garage.

Charlie Burns wriggled, and Chase set him down.  The man moved to hug the stunned young man, saying, “I’m glad you’re home, son.”

“Hey, Dad.”  Graham hugged back, not mentioning his absent brother.  His newly dead brother.  Blades left before the rage could find new fuel.  Boulder blinked in confusion then looked curiously between the flier and the men.  Blades ignored him, Chase would handle it.

Finding Heatwave wasn’t all that hard, but Blades took his time.  The firebot had seemed subdued the last time Blades had seen him, but that didn’t mean a little more time alone was a bad thing.  For either of them.

The firebot was lying on his back on a hill, staring at the sky.  The helicopter sat down silently. He was curious, but didn’t really want to ask.  That wasn’t the way to get answers out of Heatwave anyway.  Blades wrapped his arms around his struts, staring out over the vista.

Griffin Rock was nothing more than a cute little human town from here.  Nestled among the green leaves and grasses, between the deep blue ocean and the granite cliffs, it was hard to imagine the little commonwealth was anything but sleepy and peaceful.  On another day, Blades might have laughed.  The funniest part was that the people of Griffin Rock did view their lives as uneventful… most of the time.  Panic was rare and tragedy nearly unknown.  Kade hadn’t even died on the island.

Time slipped silently along with the unusually low hung clouds particular to Maine.  Blades missed this place every day and every night, and even though he hadn’t missed Kade, the helicopter would have gladly spent a thousand years welded to the man if he and Dani could have just stayed here.  Suddenly nostalgic for the fireman, Blade remembered all the good things about Kade: his unexpectedly sweet moments, unwavering dedication, and fierce love.  Somewhere between one memory and the next, Blades felt himself let go of the negative.  Kade was just a man, remarkably similar to Heatwave whom Blades adored.

Kade was just a man.  A man Blades would never see again… and wasn’t that sad.

A life cut short was always sad, but as Blades remembered Pearl Pennby’s soot-streaked little face tucked sleepily over Kade’s shoulder and the confidently casual way the man had held the tot, remembered thinking that the man would make an excellent father, Blades realized that it would never happen.  No child would ever know that protection, that love.  _Primus_.  Kade’s whole life had been ahead of him and now it was over.  Just like that.

Blades sighed, looking down at Heatwave.  The firebot glanced up, meeting Blades optics.

“You know, I still don’t get it.”  He looked back to the daubs of unmade precipitation scudding across the azure sky.  “Kade would convince me to ditch patrol and come out here.  I hated it.”  Heatwave was quiet so long Blades thought the conversation was over.   “On cool days he’d lie on my chest plates.” Expression becoming painfully wistful, the firebot placed a hand over his spark.  The helicopter wondered if Heatwave could still feel Kade there…


	2. Sunrise

Blades and Heatwave walked to the docks under the orange light of the rising sun.  It was counterintuitive, _wrong_ , for this day to start so beautifully.  The ferry was just arriving from the mainland, having made a special early run to bring home Kade’s body.  The ocean glinted gold on sapphire, leading a rippling path into infinity.  Maybe that was right, a glittering boardwalk of light for Kade’s spirit to follow back to the AllSpark. 

Then again… “If what Bumblebee said is true; humans are born of Unicron.  I wonder what happens to them?”

Beside Blades, Heatwave stumbled to a stop.  The helicopter paused, looking at his leader.  The firebot stared straight ahead, eyes distant, face frozen, and field in absolute turmoil.  Blades supposed that hadn’t been very tactful of him, but Heatwave had to have considered what happened to humans when they died.  His human partner _was_ dead.

“Heatwave?”  Blades reached out, his long-unused field full of soothing vibrations and did his best to bring the older bot back to the moment.  Maybe Heatwave _hadn’t_ considered that the humans would die first, all of them.

“He’s alright, Blades,” Chase assured, having arrived unnoticed. 

The blue bot shuffled in beside Heatwave, pressing against the firebot and using himself as a physical anchor.  Heatwave clutched at the policebot’s hand.  Chase wrapped his field in a tight ball around the two of them and Blades inexplicably felt jealous.  Heatwave _needed_ that comfort, it didn’t matter that it came from someone else, or that Blades wasn’t included.  Chase bent his head to Heatwave’s audial and began to murmur in soft standard.  Blades ordered himself not to listen; his standard was rusty, anyway.  Minutes later, Chase’s field loosened at the edges, brushing against Blades.  The helicopter suppressed a relieved shiver, he was being far too emotional about all the wrong things.

A bugle began to play solemnly, and Blades turned to watch the ceremony.  There had to be nearly a hundred firefighters in pristine white shirts and crisply striped pants all cramped into neat rows on the ferry’s deck around a lone fire engine with its dozens of red and white lights flickering.  Despite the crowding, six men turned sharply, marching neatly to the back of the engine and sliding out a flag covered casket.  As they slowly paced off the ferry in perfect time, someone shouted a stalwart command and the gathered firefighters saluted as one.  Time seemed to crawl. 

A volley of gunfire echoed over the waves.

Distantly, Blades was surprised he didn’t startle.  Unable to truly tear his optics from the procession, he managed to see where the sharp report of half a dozen, no seven, rifles originated.  There was another, smaller boat just off the dock.  The vessel appeared to be owned by Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and was fit to tip with the number of saluting wardens and police officers aboard.  A third crack of gunfire, completing what humans called a twenty-one-gun salute, bit the air. 

The memory of the noise rang strangely in the otherwise oddly quite morning.  The chatter of seabirds was absent.  Not a single car horn honked in town.  Everything was still and silent except for the pallbearers and the gentle lapping of the ocean.  Blades hated it.

A young woman stepped forward, saluted the casket, and then Chief Burns.  Charlie swallowed audibly in the terrible pause, then approached with a salute of his own.  She lifted a ribbon laden with badges and medals from around her neck, gently disentangling them from a burnt set of dog tags.  She place the burden formally into Charlie’s hands.

Blades couldn’t see the Chief’s face beneath his own crisp white cap with its little black brim, but the helicopter was sure he didn’t want to imagine it either.  Clearly, the man was staring at the pile of silk and gold and copper and silver.  After a protracted moment, Charlie bent his head over the honors in his hands.  Time stood still.

The father cried.

An anguished howl burst forth from the man and he crumpled to the ground, sobbing over a handful of trinkets that could never hope to make up for the child he had lost.  His surviving sons curled around him, offering themselves as ineffective comfort.  Charlie didn’t seem to notice them.

Inside the firetruck and along the railings of the ferry were firemen in their yellow or black bunker gear, eight of them approached quietly.  Somehow, they seemed no less regal for their soot streaks and singes, fitting themselves carefully between the pallbearers and allowing the casket to be set upon the steel toes of their boots.

Dully, Blades realized that they were prepared for Griffin Rock to provide no answering honor guard.  The bots would serve that purpose when the mainlanders left, or when one of the Burnses managed to issue the order.  The men didn’t seem to mind.

Curiously, Dani turned to the woman instead of her father.  “I’m surprised you didn’t carry the casket,” she said quietly.

The woman smiled a watery smile, glancing at the firemen.  “They won’t let me do anything.”  Dani raised a brow when the other woman looked back.  She laughed a watery laugh.  “There’s no good time to say this… I’m pregnant.”

Dani was stunned into silence for a moment.  The declaration had no effect on her father.  Her brothers looked up in wonder.  “Did Kade know?” Graham breathed.

The woman nodded.  “We were on our way to tell you when the call came in.”

Charlie reached up, snagging the woman’s hand and pulling her to the ground, as uncaring of her freshly pressed uniform as he was of his own.  She landed mostly in his lap and he curled around her, burying his despair in her chest.  Dani sunk to the ground as well, filling in the space left for her against her father’s back.

Something pulled Blades attention away from the tragic scene at his feet.  The Lady of Griffin Rock had been known to follow Kade, and often spooked the redhead if he returned to the island late at night.  The ghost seemed to have mistaken the fireman for her missing son.  Now, she curled over the head of the casket, crying ethereal tears into the flag as she faded from existence, finally finding closure for the death of her family.

“That is one weird lady,” Kade’s voice said from nowhere.  Blades turned to find his ghost, how terrible, speaking with Mrs. Neederlander.  No one else seemed to notice.  Blades supposed the old woman had one foot in the Well herself, maybe that made spirits easier to see.  But then why could Blades see Kade and not poor Heatwave, who was still shock-ridden and being supported by Chase?

“And what unfinished business do you have?” Mrs. Neederlander didn’t look impressed.

Kade smiled at her, the bizarre affection the two shared not at all impacted by his death.  “If you think I’m going to miss watching my baby grow up, you are sorely mistaken.”

Mrs. Neederlander smiled, crooked but proud.  “Good boy.”

Kade laughed and approached his family, whom all the other humans were politely not watching.

Family.  Maybe the broken gestalt bonds brought Blades himself closer to the Well.  Or maybe one simply had to be looking at a ghost to see it. 

Kade brushed a hand over his father’s head, stooping to kiss his fiancé.  He promised, “I’ll be here.”  She whispered back in a language Blades didn’t recognize.  Kade disappeared with a smile.  The woman started to cry, hugging Charlie tightly.  

Poetically, a dense sea smoke had slowly rolled in, obscuring the town and the ferry and the wardens’ boat, except for the fuzzy twinkle of their lights.  Blades leaned against Boulder and felt the green bot shivering.  Surreptitiously, they moved to hold each other, mindful of the Greene family near Boulder’s struts.

“Did you see him?” Blades whispered.

“Yes,” Boulder sighed.  “Is it sad that I’ve never seen him look so happy?”

It probably was, Blades didn’t say, but then again; if dead was the last thing you would ever be, wouldn’t it be best to be content that way?  Blades sighed, tucking his digits in Boulder’s tread.  It was strange to be so unaffected by a funeral, not that Blades was unaffected, just… not gestalt-level affected.  He could think and observe and mourn.  And chuckle when Kade winked into existence on Heatwave’s shoulder, startling the fire and police bots before disappearing again. 

The faint echo of Kade’s laughter surrounded them with the fog, drowning out the rest of the morning.


End file.
